A busy week at Pick-and-Pop will include a return of the Pick-and-Popcast later today, a peek in the team’s future tomorrow, a Grizzlies-Spurs series preview later in the week, and just maybe more.

But first, today, let’s pause as the regular-season winds down to bestow some awards for the Grizzlies season, and go on the record on league-wide awards.

Grizzlies Awards

Grizzlies MVP: At age 29, in his 10th NBA season, Mike Conley quieted complaints about his league-record contract among all but the most gloomy of observers by responding with his best NBA season. He will lead the Grizzlies in scoring for the first time this season and likely with the highest scoring average (20.6 pending Wednesday’s finale) on the team since Zach Randolph’s 20.8 in 2010-2011. He will also have the Grizzlies' highest Player Efficiency Rating (23.1 at the moment) since Pau Gasol’s 24.2 in 2006-2007.

Along with the career high scoring, Conley should set or match career highs in field-goal percentage, three-point attempts and percentage, free throw attempts and percentage, rebounds per game, and nearly (6.3 to 6.5) assists. He’s played 68 games (with one to go) and will enter the postseason as healthy as he’s been in the spring in recent memory. (What are few stitches to a guy who played with a broken face?) A player who began his career in a fight for the team’s point guard future, Conley has slowly climbed his way up the team’s pecking order. Now, he’s joined Marc Gasol as a co-claimant to the top spot, at worst.

Grizzlies LVP: Of course it’s Chandler Parsons, whose injury-racked season offered negative value at a max contract price. He wasn’t just the Grizzlies’ Least Valuable Player, but takes the title for the league, besting fellow 2017 free agent duds Joakim Noah, Luol Deng and Evan Turner (who can’t blame age or injury). Rounding out the bottom five: How about the Detroit Pistons center rotation, with more than $34 million dollars across three players and a lottery ticket to show for it.

Most Surprising: When the Grizzlies signed Vince Carter to a three-year contract in the summer of 2014, the hope was that he’d approximate, in the first and, hopefully, the second year of the deal, the superb bench play he’d provided in Dallas the previous two seasons. The idea of production in the third year was something less than gravy. What might have been simply a two-year, $10 million deal was structured over three years ($12 million, but only $2 million guaranteed in the third season) to avoid the luxury tax. The third season was as likely to be simply a deferred payment to a retired player as a productive spot on the roster. Well, the Dallas Vince never quite showed up those first two seasons, but in his age 40 third season with the Grizzlies, as the oldest player in the NBA, he’s come closer than anyone could have expected at this point, with 38 percent three-point shooting, sure ballhandling and passing, and an improbable crucial starting role on a playoff team.

Most Disappointing: Parsons is the obvious call here, but “disappointing” is too mild, and his travails are purely injury-generated. Some might say Wade Baldwin, but true rookies his age and at his level of experience (fewer than 400 NBA minutes) are almost uniformly bad, especially ones taken outside the lottery. The choice here, instead, is Jarell Martin, who finished strong in his injury-marred rookie season and had chances this season to force his way into the mix, especially with Brandan Wright out to start the season and Parsons’ injury preventing the team from playing small-ball. Instead, Martin regressed, shooting under 39 percent from the floor and finding himself back in Iowa. A freight train in the open floor, with a quick first step and a developing three-point shot, Martin has some scoring tools, but he struggled to put the pieces together this season. With Deyonta Davis seemingly already passing him and rookie combo forward Rade Zagorac heading to Memphis next season, Martin’s future with the team looks rocky.

Most Promising: The Grizzlies have employed five rookies this season. Deyonta Davis, just barely 20, is the youngest, has played the second-fewest minutes, and has scored the fewest NBA points among them. (Yes, even fewer than Wayne Selden, who’s spent most of the season in Iowa.) And yet … Among the four rookies who remain (so long, Troy Williams), Selden and Andrew Harrison are older, more experienced, more physically developed and closer to what they will be, which might be NBA-rotation-worthy but seems unlikely to be much more than that.

Baldwin, the team’s top draft pick last summer, is, so far, a bundle of attributes that doesn’t add up to a basketball player. He’s got length, speed and vision, but he lacks the strength to fight through screens and finish with contact, he has a wonky jumper, and his decision-making is uncertain, particularly in transition and in the lane. His career could head in absolutely any direction. In five years, he might be in the All-Star game. He might be out of the league. Davis is also mostly a bundle of attributes, but has a clearer path to a meaningful impact because he doesn’t need to do as much. A strong, long, springy 6’10”, he’s been effective as a shot-blocker and rim protector already, and should be a plus finisher and rebounder if he can soften his grip just a little bit as he gains comfort. Offensively, he’s no Marc Gasol, but there are nascent signs of a jump hook and a mid-range jumper worth developing. He seems to be only a little more game experience away from being a worthy back-up center, with the potential for much more.

Best Game (Team): There’s no obvious classic this season, but plenty of good ones. Marc Gasol’s late heroics in overtime wins over Washington and New Orleans. Both Golden State wins, a home blowout and a road comeback. An early win at the Clippers and a recent home playoff-preview (they hope) win against the Spurs. But I think my favorite game was the 115-109 pre-Christmas Eve home win over Houston. An intensely competitive game and ostensible clash of styles where the Grizzlies deployed balance (three bench players in double figures) and finally beat Houston at their own game, knocking down 13 threes and holding them off with a 38-point fourth quarter.

Best Game (Player): Mike Conley’s season was littered with big nights (36 and 6 over the Pacers, 27-9-7 over the Bulls; 27-4-12 at Golden State, 30-5-8 in that road win over the Clippers). Zach Randolph also went large (27-11-6) in the road win over the Warriors, and bullied Utah (28-9). Vince Carter was perfect (8-8 from the floor and 6-6 from the line) in scoring a season-high 24 against the Bucks. And who can forget Troy Daniels’ 31-point flamethrower over the Lakers? Marc Gasol scored a career high 42 points in a two-point win over Toronto. But I’m going with Gasol’s 28-11-10 triple double in a two-point double-overtime win in New Orleans, where he outplayed Anthony Davis head-to-head and forced OT with this:

Best New Signature: The three-pointer. Troy Daniels has proven to be the team’s most combustible three-point specialist since Mike Miller. Mike Conley has set career highs in both three-point attempts and three-point percentage, setting a new single-game high (7) that he’s matched five times this season. And if he’s not quite James Harden, or even Harden’s teammate Lou Williams, he’s grown adept at baiting opponents into contact on his follow-through. And Marc Gasol has connected on 103 threes after making only 12 in his previous 8 seasons. While Gasol’s long-range fireworks have grown both less frequent and less flamboyant over the course of the season, we’ll always have October:

Best Highlight: Gasol’s aforementioned flurry of clutch threes and attendant celebrations are perhaps the obvious picks here, but as devotee of slick-passing big men and bursts of creativity hidden within games and seasons, I can’t avoid this addition to the already lengthy lexicon of Gasol passes:

Best Moment: 8Ball & MJG dapping up Z-Bo before the tip in the season opener was an early frontrunner, but a different, emotional Z-Bo moment is perhaps what we’ll remember most about this Grizzlies season:

If I Had a Ballot …

The clear-cut top four could be put in pretty much any order without serious quarrel from these quarters. But in a close call, Westbrook’s sheer force of will in carrying his team -- beyond just the triple-double average -- will be what’s most remembered about this season. I’d agonize over this more if I had a vote.

I’d shift Davis and Green into “center” roles both in recognition of how their teams have played and to get the most meaningful 15 players possible onto the list. Marc Gasol and Mike Conley have both been good enough to get into a third-team conversation, but Gasol’s and the team’s fade and Conley’s mid-year back injury

The NBA’s best perimeter defender (Leonard), best interior defender (Gobert), and best multi-purpose/team defender (Green). Given how the game is played now, and given that the high-octane Warriors actually had the NBA’s second-best defense, per possession, I’m giving Green the nod.

Allow me to be a homer for a second. Randolph is not factoring strongly enough in the public discussion around this award so far, with Houston’s duo of Gordon and the recently acquired Lou Williams getting most of the attention. This award tends to go to perimeter gunners (see: Williams, Jamal Crawford), and the Houston guys fit the bill. But Williams’ performed most this season on a going-nowhere Laker team. Gordon has mostly stayed healthy and had a nice season for Houston, but his primary attribute is scoring and he’s only averaged two more points per game than Randolph despite playing seven more minutes a game on one of the NBA’s three fastest paced teams (while Randolph plays for one of the league’s three slowest). Scoring-wise, it’s at least a wash, and Randolph has also lead the Grizzlies in rebounding while making a transition into a new role. Iguodala is the anti-Gordon/Williams. They only shoot. Iguodala only does everything else. Honorable mention, also, to Miami’s Brothers Johnson, James and Tyler.

Right, Embiid played less than half a season, and even then on a minutes restriction. Other candidates played more, but Embiid played so much better. For a precious little while, he was an all-NBA caliber performer amid a fully lackluster rookie class of role players and far-away hopefuls. Hurt again, who knows if we’ll ever see this Embiid again. He deserves to be remembered. What, you’d rather posterity record Malcolm Brogdon or Dario Saric's seasons? Really?

This award more often goes from players making the leap from average to very good than from very good to great, but these were probably truly the most improved players in the NBA this season. Honorable mentions to Bradley Beal, Harrison Barnes, Otto Porter, Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Gary Harris and your own Mike Conley.

Gregg Popovich led his team to the NBA’s second-best record with a squad that has one star, one semi-star and a rotation full of guys either almost done or just getting started. He’s always the league’s best coach, and in the Spurs’ first season without Tim Duncan, he was as good as ever. Spoelstra took a team from the cusp of tanking to the cusp of the playoffs in short order. He proved this season that it wasn’t just Lebron. He’s an elite coach. And D’Antoni found the right fit for his system, which sent the Rockets into overdrive.

Reach Chris Herrington at chris.herrington@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter at @chrisherrington and @herringtonNBA.